The leading members of the Olympic movement met in Lausanne, Switzerland to discuss important topics, with esports being of the focal talking points.

The members had mainly positive things to say about the growing industry and asked the International Olympics Committee (IOC) and the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) to work together in exploring the industry further.

The Olympic Summit acknowledged esports' growth and their potential as sporting activities

The agreement shows encouraging sign for esports' inclusion at the 2024 Olympics in Paris

RELATED ARTICLES

Share this article

Share

Esports will already be included as an Olympic event as the 2024 Asia games as competitve gaming is extremely popular in that part of the world.

The Summit acknowledged the development of esports and agreed: 'Esports are showing strong growth, especially within the youth demographic across different countries, and can provide a platform for engagement with the Olympic Movement.'

We've already seen a keen interest in esports from Paris with multiple events such as the EU LCS Summer Split finals have been held in the capital and football club Paris Saint Germain have their own esports divisions with teams in FIFA and Rocket League.

And the members of The Summit also agreed that esports should be considered sports, labelling them as 'competitive' and said players: 'prepare and train with an intensity which may be comparable to athletes in traditional sports.'

Elite esports stars such as Faker will compete for Olympic medals at the 2022 Asia Games

One person who shunned the idea of esports in the Olympics is IOC president Thomas Bach who previously said: 'We want to promote non-discrimination, non-violence, and peace among people. This doesn’t match with video games, which are about violence, explosions and killing.'

Bach was amongst the guests at the Summit and appears to be warming to the idea of esports' inclusion. However, those core values of no violence are still strong as the Summit agreed: 'In order to be recognised by the IOC as a sport, the content of "esports" must not infringe on the Olympic values.'

It means games such as CS:GO and Call of Duty will probably never be included in an Olympic event while FIFA and Rocket League look strongly plausible. It is unknown where that leaves cartoon-style games with a tiny bit of violence such as League of Legends and Overwatch.

Gamers will be earning Olympic medals at the 2022 Asia games and we could soon see esports as part of the main Olympics, possibly even as soon as Paris 2024.